Saudi Arabia ups renewable energy capacity by 300%

Saudi Arabia announced the connection of additional 2,100 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy projects to its national electricity grid since 2022, taking the total installed renewable energy capacity to 2,800 MW (2.8 GW).

The energy generated will be sufficient to power more than 520,000 homes, state-owned SPA reported.

This marks a 300% surge in total capacity and a significant step towards the Kingdom's continued progress in accelerating energy transition.

The Kingdom launched a number of projects to reduce dependence on liquid fuels and replace them with gas to generate electricity.

As of December 2023, four high-efficiency gas-fired power plants with a total capacity of nearly 5,600 MW have become operational.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia is building highly-efficient plants equipped with carbon capture and storage technologies, with a total capacity of approximately 8.4 GW.

As part of its ongoing investment into future-proof fuels, the Kingdom in developing the $8.4 billion green hydrogen plant in NEOM, which is set to be the world’s largest. Several bilateral agreements have been signed with international counterparts throughout 2023 to produce and export clean and green hydrogen.

Since the launch of the Saudi Green Initiative, 43.9 million trees and shrubs have been planted and 94,000 hectares of degraded land have been rehabilitated across the Kingdom, contributing to the target of growing 10 billion trees over the coming decades.

Over 40 initiatives are already underway, directly supporting progress towards the interim target of planting over 600 million trees and rehabilitating eight million hectares of land by 2030.